


any eden we can name

by what_on_io



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings, Oral Sex, teeny tiny bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 08:14:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12553132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_on_io/pseuds/what_on_io
Summary: "I know what you mean about the sprites. They’re feistier than one of your Friday night curries.”“Well, if you’re that bothered about it, Rimmer, there’s always something we could do,” Lister says with a shrug. He’s just biding his time, waiting for Rimmer to remove his fist from his mouth and-“What something?” he asks, like he doesn’t want to know the answer.Ah. There it is.The AR discs have eroded after 3 million years, and the crew need some way to get their rocks off, right? Enter some crafty html coding and a heap of misunderstandings and you'll have a general idea what this fic is about.





	any eden we can name

**Author's Note:**

> Yooooooo I'm back!!
> 
> I started writing this waaaay back when series XI aired, and I was definitely intending to finish it before series XII. I'm a mess of a human being at the moment. But it's finished! It's here! Also talk to me about the new series because I love it!!!
> 
> Title comes from Reginald Shepherd's 'You, Therefore'.

The only thing Lister is aware of is the hand currently trailing down his naked side: a delicate, teasing touch that leaves him shivering when it draws away. Slender fingers are replaced by a pair of lips; lips Lister knows are perfect and plump, raising goosebumps on his flesh.

A pitched moan escapes his mouth when the lips trail lower, his hands wobbling a tad uselessly at his sides. He writhes, uncertain if it's ecstasy or torture when the hand returns, following the trail the lips left to slip lower, dancing around his groin, slowly, slowly getting closer to-

And the hand is retracted once more, the lips smirking a bit before gradually moving further away from where he desperately wants them to be heading towards, thank you very much. They latch onto the skin at his neck to suck a deep purple blossom there before ascending further north - the soft pads of fingers caressing his face, barely there, before-

"AAAARGH!" Lister screams. The lips are, without warning, replaced by teeth at his earlobe. This he wouldn't normally object to, except they're biting down hard enough to draw blood. At the same time, a hand slams into his crotch with enough force to cripple a GELF.

Lister ejects himself from the AR console as quickly as the various components will allow, ripping the helmet and gloves off and springing from the lounger. His hand goes to cup his left ear, which still throbs as if tainted by a phantom pain, and then eases down lower to massage his aching groin.

"Smeggin' hell, guys, we really need to get some new games for the AR suite!" he complains as he stumbles through to the bunkroom, where Rimmer is occupied with a giant tome at the table and Kryten is fussing with a mop.

"Oh, sir, you didn't injure yourself playing that glitchy Zero-G football sim again, did you?" Kryten asks, face pinched. Lister throws himself into the chair opposite Rimmer with a heavy sigh, and shakes his head. Kryten doesn't have to know that the last sprained thigh muscle he got wasn't from Zero-G, anyway.

"Have you beaten all the levels in Zombie World 27?" Kryten ventures.

"Nah, Krytes.”

"Oh, sir, don't tell me you've broken Extreme Warfare: Bullet Blizzard again!" the mechanoid exclaims, looking horrified at the prospect.

"I think it's fairly clear what Listy's been up to, Kryten," Rimmer says smugly, glancing up from _Alexander the Great's Greatest Manoeuvres Volume IV_. He'd be a hell of a lot less smug if he knew Lister knew he'd skipped over the first three volumes and only looked at the pictures.

"Well, what is it, sir?" Oh, bless the mechanoid for his ignorance, Lister thinks.

"Lister here has, once again, been using the AR suite for his own filthy smegging vices. Honestly, it's disgusting! You do know we all use those loungers? Last time booth three was still all sticky!”

"Oh, Rimmer, don't have a go. We all know you don't use AR to play Ultimate Yoga: Advanced Edition. You're just not that flexible, man!" Lister argues. Rimmer looks scandalised, and Kryten is clutching his broom with a revolted kind of confusion.

"I'll have you know I'm plenty flexible, Lister! My standing split was the envy of the Space Scouts!”

"You did yoga in the Space Scouts?" Lister begins to enquire, before he's interrupted by another painful throb in his privates.

"Smeg!" he laments, loud enough to rouse Kryten's concern once more.

"Mister Lister, sir, if you tell me what's troubling you-“

"If you must know, it's the computer sprites, alright? They've gone all warped, man. The discs have been out in deep space too long, all the programs have gone funny.”

"Aha! So you admit you've been fondling the sprites, then?" Rimmer sneers, pointing a finger in Lister's face, "I knew it. They're not even real people, Lister! It's like trying to have sex with binary code.”

"Oh, yeah, and Rachael's the real deal, is she Rimmer? I hate to break it to you, but actual women don't get punctures," Lister fires back.

“You-"

"Look, we all do it, alright?" Lister mutters, because Rimmer's making a horrible guilty feeling squirm in his gut. “And this one sprite, she was gorgeous, yeah? Lovely and curvy, and she did this thing with her tongue, and once we got talking she was actually really interestin'- Anyway, we’re settling in for the night, all fine like - and she goes and bites me! And not a nice bite, either. I think my earlobe’s still got her teethmarks!” The crotch incident would definitely not improve the state of this conversation. Definitely not in front of Kryten.

"Well, Lister, that's what you get from a game called Leggy Blondes and Leather: Space Invasion III," Rimmer shoots.

“Oh, smeg off Rimmer-“

“Sir, I can’t believe you’ve once again stooped to using the AR suite for your own nefarious purposes - I thought we talked about this!” Kryten cries, wringing his hands in distress. Lister goes to placate him but he’s already scampering from the room, protesting that he has to ‘scrub the crust off the booths again’.

“I’ll remember to talk to the Cat about this stuff in future, then,” Lister mutters. He clambers up to his bunk to grab a magazine and pages through it while Rimmer stares at the same spot on his page. Deliberating something, Lister thinks. He knows the man too well - enough to recognise that this mild flaring of his nostrils means he’s about to bring up something humiliating and repulsive. It says something about Rimmer’s psyche that Lister always ends up being his confidant in these situations.

“Er, Lister. Might have been a bit hasty before.”

“Oh yeah, Rimmer?”

“The thing is, I know what you mean. About the sprites,” he clarifies, “They’re feistier than one of your Friday night curries.”

Lister could tease him with _I told you so’s_  - and, a few years previous, he would have done with a gleeful satisfaction that made Rimmer go all red and blustery - but he’s grown up since then. He merely makes a _hmph_  sound and flips a page in his magazine. That’ll drive Rimmer nuts, anyway, him not getting the proper level of taunting from Lister. He can already see the tips of his ears turning pink.

“I was in there last week having the time of my life - Hammond organ music in the background, a few candles, reciting Shakespeare to each other in the flickering light, and the smegging thing nearly twisted my nipples off.” The latter clause is spilled out in such a rush that Lister struggles to catch the words, despite what Rimmer would deem impeccable Ionian pronunciation. His ears are rapidly flushing scarlet, along with his cheeks. He attempts to hide his face in his book, but he isn’t fooling anyone.

“Well, if you’re that bothered about it, Rimmer, there’s always something we could do,” Lister says with a shrug, and flips another page. It’s all a pretence, of course - he’s read this particular back-copy of Zero-G Monthly eighteen times already, and knows the pictures and scoreboards by heart. He’s just biding his time, waiting for Rimmer to remove his fist from his mouth and-

“What something?” he asks, like he doesn’t want to know the answer.

Ah. There it is.

* * *

 

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Rimmer asks dubiously. They’re in the AR suite, and he’s fidgeting nervously while Lister taps away at a keyboard. He’s the one studying for his engineering exams, anyway, which is close enough, and Rimmer admits he’s never been much good with technology. The last time he tried to recalibrate one of the dispensers it splurged half-cooked instant noodles all over his uniform, and taunted him for daring to call himself a Second Technician.

“‘Course it’ll work, Rimmer. Just need to tap in a bit more code and…”

There’s a positive sounding _bleep_ , and Lister looks up triumphantly, “Theeeere we go,” he says, dragging out the vowel, “Told ya it’d work.”

“So now we just…” Rimmer begins, before trailing off and looking to Lister a bit apprehensively, as if for advice. Lister decides to rescue him before he goes into further meltdown - he’s already twisting his hands together rather violently, and if his skin turns a deeper shade of red Lister’ll have to get him down to the medi-bay, and his whole plan will have gone to smeg.

“Pick a booth and get on with it, I suppose,” he shrugs. Rimmer gives him a doubtful look but starts towards a lounger anyway, starts to slide into the leather recliner.

“And you’re sure this isn’t… weird, or anything?” he asks. Lister’s already struggling into his gloves, and glances up at Rimmer with a frown.

“Nah, man. ‘Course not. It’s not like we’re gonna be doin’ each other in there, y’know? It’ll be just like with the sprites, only less… feisty.”

Rimmer’s expression says he’d take a triple-spice vindaloo at this point, just to get away from Lister’s gerbilly grin. He reluctantly slides back into the lounger and yanks his gloves on as quickly as possible, craving the moment when he can slam his visor down and not have to look at his bunkmate.

“You can always back out, y’know?” Rimmer hears Lister say, as though from an ocean away. He’s faintly touched, but he’s got this far. Arnie J. doesn’t back down from a challenge.

Well, that’s quite obviously a lie, Rimmer recognises dimly. But he sure as hell isn’t backing down from this one.

* * *

 

When the room comes into focus, it’s empty. Rimmer gazes around himself a bit dazedly, taking in his surroundings - an empty, medieval-style bedchamber, torches blazing on the stone walls, with a King-sized four-poster slap bang in the centre of the room made up with scarlet silk hangings.

It’s nice. More upmarket than he imagined Lister would go for-

Except he’s not supposed to be thinking about Lister.

Where is he, anyway? Shouldn’t he be here by now?

Just as Rimmer’s about to start panicking, the door to the chamber opens hesitantly and in walks the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.

Well, she should be, because he’s programmed in exactly what kind of woman he wants. She’s buxom, blonde, a few inches shorter than Rimmer. Her scarlet mouth goes from a cute little pout into a small smile when she lays eyes on him, blue eyes glistening with something halfway between nervous and amused.

This is definitely weird, Rimmer thinks. Because the hesitation in the woman’s eyes is not the flirty hesitation of a random computer-generated sprite, but _Lister’s_  hesitation. Her gait when she steps further into the room, letting the door swing shut behind her, has definite hints of masculinity - those are the same determined steps Lister takes when they’re investigating a derelict or when he’s making a midnight pilgrimage to the food dispensers.

“You’re here,” Rimmer says, stupidly. He wonders what kind of woman Lister’s looking at now. A woman with Rimmer’s rigid posture, twisting her hands together in front of her, mouth turned down into a grimace.

“So are you,” Lister - no, not Lister! - retorts. The voice, at least, is all woman - lilting and soft, no trace of a Scouse accent. Rimmer consciously tries to relax himself, slumping so his lower body presses back into the bed frame and looping an arm around one of the posts. Smeg - is that too presumptuous? The arm goes back to his side. Now he’s leaning lamely to the left, his arm dangling, a taut smile on his face.

“Relax,” the woman says, and steps closer. Close enough to smell, now. Rimmer sniffs warily, expecting the tang of vindaloo or the stale scent of beer, but instead gets a floral perfume that spikes arousal in his gut.

She leans in, and it’s pretty clear that those ruby lips are going to press against his in just a second. Rimmer has time to purse his mouth and then they’re upon him, soft and pliant. This, combined with the perfume and the curvy body pressing against his own, allows him to finally sink into it, the tension seeping from his arms, parting his lips to allow another tongue to probe his.

“Mmm,” Lister mutters. Another spike of arousal pulses through Rimmer and he gives himself entirely to the kiss, his arms slowly working their way around Lister’s shoulders to curl his fingers around his dreads-

Smeg! Not dreads. Straight, waist-length blonde hair, soft to the touch. Nothing like Lister’s. Nothing at all.

Rimmer curses himself internally while the woman - maybe he should call her Rachael, for old time’s sake, he thinks morbidly - drags them both backwards onto the bed. The mattress is soft, just the right combination of springy, a hell of a lot more comfortable than his bunk. Lister’ll probably agree, maybe he should comment- Would that be weird? Probably best to keep his mouth shut.

So Rimmer does keep his mouth shut. Throughout the entirety of their foreplay. He doesn’t make a sound while the woman groans shamelessly above him - it’s all he can do to return the kisses with vigour. His concentration is almost entirely spent by the time her clothes come off, and he has a pair of breasts jiggling in his face.

For Rimmer, sex - what little he’s had of it - has always been a test. Another exam to fail, another humiliation to endure. Rather than taking his time to learn a new partner’s body, he focuses entirely on lasting as long as possible and matching them snog for snog with as much enthusiasm as he can muster. And, the thing is, the very crux of the matter is - he’s not very good at either of those things.

“Relax, love,” Lister’s whispering. A shock goes through Rimmer at the endearment and he freezes, fingers still tangled in his - her? - hair. Oh, smeg. He’s completely and utterly smegged.

“C’mon. Let’s get you out of this dress,” he continues. Reality slams back into Rimmer’s stomach, because of course Lister didn’t mean _him_. Lister’s probably seeing Kochanski, or Lise Yates, or a multitude of other women he’s been in love with. And Rimmer’s stupid enough to stand in for them-

Still, he relaxes. Increment by increment. He allows the rhythmic movements of Lister’s hands in his own hair to lull his muscles into slackness, and, later, their own matching thrusts to achieve the same. He resolutely tells himself that this is not Lister, that Lister is standing in for _him_ , too, they’re both doing this as a means to an end.

It doesn’t work.

Perhaps he should have modelled his sprite on Yvonne McGruder - somehow that might feel more appropriate. Instead he has a beautiful but imaginary woman for whom he has no strong feelings either way, and he’s getting clogged up with feelings about Dave Lister, of all people-

Maybe it’ll get easier with practice. Here he is, presented with a positive Venus, and he’s wishing for Red Dwarf’s female boxing champion. A Venus whose lips are nibbling at his collarbone with obscene moans rising from her throat. A Venus who's only a mask for his grotty bunkmate.

* * *

 

Rimmer endures the crushing awkwardness twice more. It doesn’t get easier. When the woman moves above him, Rimmer can only see Lister reflected there. _L_ _ister’s_  mouth coming towards his,  _Lister’s_  hands at his groin. Once, the other man’s name almost slips off his tongue at the height of his pleasure. It doesn’t matter how good Lister is at this, how quickly Rimmer reaches orgasm only to have it staved off a little longer by deft fingers.

He has to do something about it.

Rimmer puts his plan into action bright and early the next morning, makes it to the AR suite before Lister even wakes up. Squinting frustratedly at the keyboard and willing some elusive knowledge to spring to mind, Rimmer sighs to himself. Mechanics are Lister’s forte; Rimmer’s no better at computers than he is astronavigation. The code swims in front of his eyes, line after line of garbled nonsense, streams of numbers and html so unapologetically green it makes the back of his eyes burn.

He taps in a few numbers at random. If he can only isolate the portion of code that Lister wrote to cloak them whilst in AR, he can change the cloaking to one of his other saved sprite files - the one labelled 12mins&pizza. Self-deprecating, sure, but at least it leaves no room for error.

“Smeg! Smegging impossible!” Rimmer groans. Maybe he should get Lister to help, but it’s too humiliating - he couldn’t bear the smirk on the other man’s face. Kryten could probably read the code too, but after Lister’s confession the mechanoid has been conspicuously ignoring them both and cleaning chairs with extra vigour every time Lister gets up.

Rimmer lets his head slump forward to rest on his folded arms. When he raises it again he’ll have a clearer mind, and he’ll be able to search for the code. It’ll be easy. It’ll be in those spiky bracket things. He can do this.

He looks up. The code swims in front of him.

Rimmer hits backspace.

* * *

It’s worked, he knows it has. His backspace spree worked!

When he’d backtracked a fair bit, Rimmer had come across a bit of the code he’d been searching for and replaced it. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t deleted any of the important stuff. Everything looked in order when he’d finished, anyway, all straight and glowing emerald. And now he’s sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for Yvonne to show up. It’ll be just like old times, except in a stone bedchamber with a faux-bearskin rug on the floor, and this time she won’t be concussed.

The door opens. This is it. Rimmer barely restrains himself from biting his fist in anticipation - it’s been years since he’s seen her. He constructed her image from the ship’s hologram records, so she’ll be a perfect replica. He can catalogue all those pesky details he didn’t get round to the first time, like the way she panted above him and pressed him into the mattress with her strong arms and went a bit cross-eyed from the head trauma, and it’ll be like reliving his first and only living sexual experience, only better-

A figure steps inside the room. Rimmer holds his breath. One leg is inside. Now half a torso, and an arm. An arm wearing motorcycle leathers-

Oh smeg.

Smegging smegging smeg!

It’s Lister.

The man himself shows no signs of realising Rimmer’s colossal faux pas, only steps further inside with what Rimmer has dubbed his Bedroom Grin, and starts divesting himself of his leather jacket. Rimmer watches it flop innocuously to the ground and can only summon a mental image of the bunkroom floor in disarray, Lister’s smeggy clothes strewn about with an almost visible smell rising up off them. Thank God he’s not wearing long-johns this time.

Wait, no. It doesn’t matter what Lister’s wearing, because he absolutely isn’t doing this. He has to stop it, now. Rimmer can’t go through with this, can he? Have sex with Lister?

Smeg. He’s going to have to admit that he’s failed, once again. Failed at something Lister proved himself competent at!

Maybe it would be better to keep quiet.

“Long time no see.” Lister’s grinning, advancing much more quickly than Rimmer is comfortable with. This isn’t giving him much time to formulate a plan, and it’s even harder with Lister’s hands snaking up to clasp his upper arms. His palms, calloused from years of tinkering with various components, are rough against Rimmer’s skin, and that inane grin is coming closer to his face, and oh God, he’s going to kiss him-

Lister’s lips are soft, Rimmer registers slowly, in increments. Almost as soft as the sprite’s, only these feel more confident - he’s obviously relaxing into the rhythm of all this. And what must he think of Rimmer, still frozen stiff as a board, arms pinned by his sides, lips pursed like his grandmother’s during their obligatory Christmas parting peck?

Well, he won’t have Lister thinking he’s some incompetent buffoon. Rimmer opens his mouth to the kiss, tasting the faint spice of curry still on Lister’s tongue, and winds his arms around his waist. His hips are sturdier than the sprite’s; it’s easier to pull him closer, feel their bodies pressed flat against one another. Groaning, Rimmer reaches for the buttons of Lister’s shirt, intent on getting him out of his clothes as quickly as humanly possible. Purely for competence-proving purposes, of course.

“Eager, are we babe?” Lister laughs breathlessly, allowing Rimmer to peel the shirt away from his shoulders and toss it to join the jacket on the floor. “I’d say you’re a bit overdressed, though.”

Rimmer isn’t currently in possession of the brain capacity necessary to form a coherent response, not while Lister is standing naked from the waist up in front of him, his for the taking. He smooths a reverent hand over the planes of his chest, wondering with a vague sense of awe how he’s never realised how beautiful Lister looks like this. He’s never really _l_ _ooked_  before, not like this, not with his fingers skimming over those dusky nipples, mapping the pattern of his ribs.

Is he really calling Lister _beautiful_?

Lister’s busy fumbling with the fastens of Rimmer’s tunic, brows furrowed in concentration. Rimmer imagines he must be seeing- what? Some sort of complex bra? No matter, because his fingers tickle Rimmer’s collarbone and a perplexed huff of breath wafts across his neck, distracting him. When Lister’s finally done with the clasps, Rimmer shucks his tunic off and starts fiddling with his own braces, then in one fluid motion whips his t-shirt over his head. Now they’re both standing in the chilly room dressed only in their trousers.

Lister’s the first to act, springing a heated kiss on Rimmer, one that sends them both crashing back towards the bed. Rimmer kisses his face and neck as best he can with the other man’s hands going to his fly, feeling all of Lister pressing him down into the mattress. Smeg, this is so much better than when Yvonne did the same. For one thing, Lister’s eyes aren’t clouded with a foggy haze, and Rimmer doesn’t feel at all suffocated lying beneath him. In fact, he’s so aroused he urges Lister closer with a palm flat on the small of his back.

Rimmer can't deny it, Lister is an amazing kisser. He puts his whole body into it, smoothing a hand down Rimmer's jawline and nuzzling closer with his hips, that plundering tongue driving him crazy with lust. His favourite part by far, however, is when Lister's fingers begin to stroke through his curls, a barely there touch. It makes Rimmer's eyes flutter shut and spills a moan from his throat.

"Lister," he groans. Lister doesn't reply, only continues his assault on Rimmer's mouth, sneaking a hand to work him out of his pants. Rimmer exhales at the contact, and then stops breathing altogether. Two things occur simultaneously - one, Lister's hand is on his cock, stroking in a slow movement up his shaft, and two, Rimmer registers that he's just moaned his name.

Lister doesn't rear back in revulsion, merely lets his lips drift to Rimmer's shoulder to suck a lovebite there. Rimmer can only hope his voice was low enough for Lister to have mistaken his name for a general grunt of arousal. Not too much of a stretch, surely?

When a few moments pass without a flash of comprehension lighting Lister's eyes, Rimmer allows himself to relax again. He exhales in a long _whoosh_ , forces the knot of tension forming in the back of his calves to untangle itself, and, upon realising he's been lying frozen long enough for Lister to pause in his ministrations to send him an enquiring look, reaches for his trousers, hoping to dispel the sudden awkwardness.

Lister seems pleased with the new plan; he shudders when Rimmer's fingers come into contact with his flesh, groans into his neck. Rimmer smiles a little to himself while they arrange themselves into a more comfortable position, feeling a tad smug at the little puffs of air Lister's huffing against his skin, raising gooseflesh there. When he gives an experimental tug, Lister sighs and pulls him closer, his hips thrusting involuntarily. He's doing that. _Rimmer_. Lister isn't fully _aware_  it's him, of course, but no matter. Maybe he's not so bad at the whole sex thing after all.

Rimmer comes a few seconds after this, blowing his theory away like dandelion seeds, but that doesn't matter either because he's seeing stars, and after a couple more desperate thrusts Lister follows suit. The last few times Rimmer had been concentrating so hard on not smegging the whole affair up that his orgasm had been as strained as his brain, but this time he's too far gone to worry much about timing. It washes over him in a flood: his hips stutter to a halt, his fists clench around the bedsheets, and his lips find Lister's throat for a few hazy seconds before he slumps back, spent.

Lister falls away from him with a loud exhale, spreading his arms wide on the mattress and letting his eyes flutter shut. His breathing is still heavy, and there's a blissful smile playing on his features. Rimmer's smugness grows exponentially.

"That was smeggin' brilliant," Lister grins. That insufferable, gerbilly grin, although this time Rimmer doesn't want to punch him as much as kiss him.

"Mmm," Rimmer agrees, unable to so much as lift his head to glance at the other man, who's shifting closer to him, making the mattress jiggle.

"Not so keen on going back to reality just yet, man, are you?” Lister asks in a tone Rimmer can only describe as playful.

"Nnngh," he replies.

* * *

 

The next time, Rimmer cries out "Dave!" instead.

It's entirely accidental, although at the same time the entire situation sort of... isn't. Rimmer hasn't bothered trying to change the AR coding again - he'd probably end up missing an arm, or Lister would come into their chamber sporting three heads, knowing his luck. He left the code as is, and he still went down to the AR suite as soon as Lister waggled his smegging eyebrows in that suggestive manner Rimmer should hate.

He doesn't hate it though. Not when it means having Lister's breath puffed out against his skin and their hands roaming each other's bodies. He definitely doesn't hate it when Lister's mouth moves to his nipples and a knee moves expertly to the space between Rimmer's thighs, nudging _just so_.

So when Rimmer cries "Dave!" it's only the result of some smegging excellent oral stimulation combined with the best handjob he's had in his life. So not his fault at all, really.

Afterwards, they stretch out side by side, panting. Lister doesn't mention Rimmer’s latest humiliation in a great string of similar humiliations. Maybe something in the many lines of html made Rimmer's words come out as something else. Yeah, and he's Alexander the Great's great great great great-

"You cold?" Lister asks, breaking Rimmer's reverie. He hadn't even realised he was shivering.

"A bit. I suppose we should..." He gestures lamely to his pants, discarded on the stone floor, but Lister shakes his head fondly.

"Nah, c'mere. I'll warm ya up."

To say Rimmer is stunned would be understatement of the year. It would definitely beat 'Simulants are a bit mean' and 'Hammond Organ music is quite good'. He remains frozen for so long, questioning this, that Lister shuffles closer unprompted, and arranges their bodies so Rimmer’s shoulder is smushed comfortably in the crook of Lister’s elbow.

The other man is warmer than the chilly stone room dictates he should be. Rimmer tells himself that he’ll pull away in just a minute. He’ll just let his extremities warm up a bit first. As soon as he can feel his toes, Arnie J is returning to the real world, where he's a sensible man with a sensible haircut who doesn't do ridiculous things like have sex with his bunkmate - his _inferior_! - and where Dave Lister isn't cuddling him.

Lister tugs the thick duvet up to cover them both, warming Rimmer toes to chin, and oh smeg it, he can’t exactly move now, can he? That would just be rude.

Rimmer has to remind himself that this isn't personal. If he hadn't been such a goiting idiot with computers, Lister would still appear as a buxom blonde, and Rimmer could be even more uncomfortable wondering if she was secretly judging his softening package and riotous curls broken free of their gel prison. Lister isn't cuddling _him_  anyway, he's probably snuggling with Kochanski right now while Rimmer seethes quietly-

“Mmm, you’re comfy, man,” Lister mumbles, turning his head a little so his words emerge against Rimmer’s skin. What feels suspiciously like an open-mouthed kiss attaches itself slimily to his shoulder.

“You too,” Rimmer replies. What he’d meant to say was ‘get off me, you great smegging slob’ or perhaps ‘I told Kryten I’d have the food inventory itemised by tomorrow - if I get it done early I can fit in a chapter of my horribly tedious astronavigation revision before bed’. His head, which he'd meant to raise to pretend to check his watch and then skidaddle, pronto, flops lazily onto Lister's shoulder, where his eyes close of their own accord and, in the chilly bedchamber with Lister's arm around him, Arnold Rimmer begins to snore.

* * *

 

"Breakfast is served, sirs," Kryten chirps, bustling happily around the dining area with plates. Rimmer folds away the incident report form he's been flicking through with a wary glance over at Lister, who'd gotten suspiciously close to the drive room console with his tandoori flambé yesterday.

"What's this?" he asks upon glimpsing the contents of his own plate. Lister's is piled high with bacon and pancakes, whipped cream oozing over the sides, and what looks like a gravy boat full of maple syrup - but could just as easily be vindaloo sauce - on the side. Rimmer's bowl of dry All-Bran stares up at him.

"Your breakfast, sir. All-Bran with no milk or sugar, just the way you like it," Kryten explains, his rubber brow furrowing in confusion.

"But why does he get all the good stuff? Why can't I have pancakes and whipped cream?" Rimmer is both aware that he's whining, and that there's a perfectly good cholesterol-related reason why he sticks to cereal for breakfast, and also that Lister would definitely have died of heart failure before him if Rimmer wasn't already dead. Still, watching the other man start scooping up pancakes and bacon with his bare hands sparks an unexplainable fury in Rimmer's chest.

"But sir, the last time I served pancakes for breakfast you threatened to put all my spare heads in an airlock and flush them out into space!" Kryten wails. Lister rolls his eyes.

"Look, if you're so bothered, Arnie, you can have some of mine." He picks up his plate and shovels a soggy crepe into Rimmer's bowl, along with a glob of maple syrup. Before Rimmer can react, Lister has scooped up a fingerful of whipped cream and holding it up to Rimmer's lips, that inane smeggy grin fixed on his face.

"What are you-"

The finger delivers a glop of too-sweet cream into his mouth with a wet sound, lingers for a minute and withdraws itself. Still stunned, Rimmer can only sit motionless as Lister presses a featherlight kiss to his forehead and moves away from the table, echoing that he's going to watch Zero-G repeats with the Cat all day.

“Well, sir, aren’t you going to eat your pancake?” Kryten asks.

Rimmer does.

* * *

 Later, he catches up with Lister in the drive room, still wandering around in a half-furious, half-befuddled state. Lister’s flicking through the same magazine he was reading two weeks prior, and Rimmer doesn’t miss the neutral facade hiding a smug gerbilly grin.

“I know you’re not reading that, Lister.”

“Eh? Course I am, man. Finally learned what the squiggles round the pictures mean!”

“Har har,” Rimmer mutters sardonically. He deposits himself into the pilot's chair opposite, the one that gives him the best angle to glare at Lister. “What was all that about?”

“All what?” Lister asks, like Rimmer knew he would.

“Don’t play coy with me, miladdo. Your little display at breakfast. I heard Kryten wailing in the laundry room before because he thinks he’s being replaced. You’d better set him straight. Actually, you’d better set _me_  straight while you’re at it.” He had to say straight, didn’t he? Couldn’t have said ‘put me right’ or ‘tell me what’s going on’, could he? Lister’s probably going to lower that Zero-G mag to look at him like he’s finally lost his marbles, and what’s worse, Rimmer will deserve it.

“You could never replace Kryten, Rimmer. He’s the only one who can stop my longjohns becoming level 4 biohazards.”

“Lister, are you out of your mind? Are we repressing this? Because, honestly, just say the word and I’ll repress away. In fact, I’ll start right now! We’ll ignore what happened at breakfast until we’re all dead!"

“All I did was kiss you, Rimmer! We’ve done a lot more than that in AR! I’m sorry if I fancied something real for once.”

“What? Lister, it’s nothing like in AR! There were… boundaries! Lines! Good old marked territories.”

Lister sighs. “It’s not that different, Rimmer-“

“Not that different? We were both projected as women, for one! How is that not different?!”

“Rimmer, that was ages ago.”

“It- it was yesterday!” Rimmer falters.

“No it wasn’t.”

Rimmer gapes a bit, more for show than anything else. Truthfully, he’d had a horrible niggling feeling that they’ve both known all along, but Rimmer is an expert at repression. If ‘Repressor of the Year’ awards existed, he’d have had three million titles on the trot by now.

“It was,” he says, to prove it. Lister’s eyes roll skyward - even though technically any way is skyward in deep space - and he swivels the chair angrily to face Rimmer. The magazine slams down on the console, illuminating several buttons colours that shouldn’t be lit unless the hull is on fire or they're entering a black hole.

“Rimmer, how long can you keep this up for? I thought we were gettin’ somewhere! I knew it’d take you a while to accept, but I assumed once you removed the cloaking routine in AR that you felt the same! Don’t throw this away just ‘cause Kryten knows, man.”

“Because Kryten knows what? Throw what away? Felt - what?” Rimmer stutters, quite unsure which question to address first. He blinks like a moose in headlights, one hand bracing the desk beside him.

“Oh, forget it. You really are the same smeggy coward you were a decade ago, aren’t you, Rimmer.” It’s not a question.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Rimmer cries, because he's _exactly_  the same smeggy coward he was a decade ago, and Lister would do well to remember that.

"So you're saying you didn't remove the cloaking code, then? You're saying you still saw me as a woman the last couple of times in AR?"

"I-" Rimmer stutters. Lister cocks a brow at him. "It was an accident!"

This prompts the other man to freeze, an arm awkwardly nudging the abandoned magazine, which proceeds to knock over an empty can of lager. The can rolls, in a cacophony of rattling metal, off the desk, and comes to a halt by Rimmer's foot.

"An accident?"

"You were supposed to be Yvonne McGruder," Rimmer mumbles. The scarlet of his face could rival the London Jets jersey Lister used to wear, back when everything was dandy and they bickered and grumbled and definitely didn't sleep together.

"Yvonne McGruder," Lister echoes.

"Yes. I messed up the code somehow."

"I see."

"Mmm."

"Well. Why didn't you, er, say anything?"

"I was embarrassed. I'm acting senior officer, it'd hardly do for me to be outwitted by a Third Technician, would it?"

“But we cuddled! There was definite cuddling involved, Rimmer. Why wouldn’t you hightail it out of there as soon as you could?”

 _Isn’t that the Rimmer you all know and hate_ , Rimmer thinks. Out loud, he protests, “It was cold!”

Lister seems truly stumped for what to say for a minute, bewildered, like Rimmer’s a rogue Simulant unleashed suddenly on the crew. "Ah, but you did say my name! Twice, as I recall!" His smug grin is back, like he's just found out that every Zero-G player miraculously lived for three million years and they want Lister to join them in touring the universe, and like he's also just heard Rimmer is being demoted to Seven-Hundredth Technician, the man who cleans the bits that clean the bits that clean the vending machines.

It's definitely Rimmer's turn to freeze, a hand slowly going up to scratch the back of his neck.

"I, er..."

"Back out of that one, _miladdo_ ,” Lister quips.

"Because..."

"Go on."

"Because it was good, alright?!" Rimmer cries. “You’re fan-smegging-tastic at giving head, is that what you want to hear?”

Lister smirks, but there’s already a more pressing question jabbing at the forefront of Rimmer’s mind.

“Wait. Before, you mentioned _f_ _eelings_. You said _felt the same_. Does that mean you, er…”

“Well, I can’t comment on your oral skills, man, ‘cause we haven’t gotten that far.”

“You know what I mean, Lister!”

“Do I? Alls you’ve said so far is that the shag wasn’t half-bad, not that you’re head over heels for me, man.”

Rimmer’s head is spinning like Kryten’s did that one memorable day when Spare Head 2 came out of storage. Does this mean Lister is…? Does Lister…?

“Yeah, Rimmer. I am. I do.”

Smeg. Now his stupid mouth is betraying his stupid thoughts again. Rimmer opens the traitorous thing, then snaps his jaw shut again, wishing the universe could be merciful for just one moment of his life and send an asteroid slamming into him. Is that too much to ask? One tiny little smegging asteroid?

"Feelings? For me? Arnold Rimmer, that's who you're talking to, yes?" Rimmer asks, just to clarify. Lister rolls his eyes again.

"Yes, Rimmer, for you."

"You're sure?"

"For smeg's sake, Rimmer-"

Lister scoots his chair over a little to close the distance between them, laying a too-warm hand on Rimmer’s arm. “Look, it’s alright if you don’t feel the same, Arn,” he says, with a sad little smile that Rimmer wants to kiss away.

Rimmer doesn’t know his mouth has once again acted without his say-so again until it’s much too late, and Lister’s hand is already threaded through the curls at the back of Rimmer’s neck the way he likes. A tongue pokes hesitantly at the edge of his lips and he opens them slightly, just enough to allow Lister access.

“So you do, then?” Lister asks between kisses. “Feel the same, I mean?”

Damn Lister and his soppy romance films, Rimmer thinks, and tries to surge forward for another snog. Lister’s having none of it though - he’ll only press tiny teasing nips against Rimmer’s neck until he answers. Better get it over with, then.

“Yes, alright? Not only are you great at sex, and more competent than I am with computer code, and very sexy when you give me those bedroom eyes, but I, Arnold Judas Rimmer, am wildly in love with you, David Lister. Is that better?” Rimmer had intended for it to emerge annoyed, or at the very least faintly irritated, but by the end of his confession he’s grinning, and Lister is gazing at him soppily, and it’s all just like a terrible black-and-white movie.

“Love you too, smeghead.”

“There were better ways to go about this without kissing me in front of Kryten, you know. _You_  could have said something, too,” Rimmer says. It’s a bit feeble, though, and doesn’t give him even half of the upper hand he’d wanted it to.

“Didn’t think talking would get us very far, man. You’re not very in touch with your emotions, are ya?” It’s quite obviously meant to be rhetorical, but indignation flares in Rimmer’s chest and there’s no way in three million years he’s letting this one go.

“I’m not emotionally stunted, Lister! If you’d just-“

“If I’d just anythin’, Rimmer, we’d be having this exact same conversation, but you’d probably find some way to weasel out of it and go back to being miserable and repressed for the rest of our lives. Now alls we’ve gotta do is tell the Cat-“

“ _Tell the Cat_?!“ Rimmer screeches. Lister’s already smirking, though, and pulling him back in for another heated snog.

* * *

 

“Sure,” Rimmer echoes later, when they’re spread out in his very real bunk. “Let’s tell the Cat. Once Kryten’s stopped crying he can be our intermediary.”

_Fin_

 


End file.
